Feds want 10 years for buyer of guns used in rampage

Aug. 22, 2014
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Dawn Nguyen is led into federal court in May for a hearing on the gun charges. Federal prosecutors are asking the judge to throw out sentencing guidelines and put Nguyen in prison for 10 years. / SHAWN DOWD/@sdowdphoto/Staff file photo

by Gary Craig, Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle

by Gary Craig, Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle

While Nguyen likely did not know that firearms she bought for William Spengler Jr. would be used in an ambush of volunteer firefighters, she did "place two tactical military-style weapons in the capable hands of a man who she knew had already killed his own grandmother," say court papers filed Thursday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Noto.

Nguyen is scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court on Thursday for her conviction in three federal crimes: lying on a federal firearms transaction when she bought a shotgun and semiautomatic rifle in June 2010; passing those weapons onto a man - Spengler - whom she knew was a convicted felon; and possessing the guns while she was a marijuana user.

The request for a 10-year sentence sets up a rare occurrence in federal court - a decision by a judge as to whether the crimes were so extraordinary that the guidelines should be bypassed. The guidelines, while only advisory, are designed to ensure comparable punishments for comparable crimes.

A judge has the discretion in unusual cases to sentence up to the maximum, which for Nguyen is 10 years for each crime.

To make his decision, U.S. District Judge David Larimer will have to weigh the question that has long been central to Nguyen's offenses: Should she be held responsible for the Christmas Eve 2012 violence spree during which Spengler killed his sister and two volunteer firefighters?

In her court papers, Noto argues that Nguyen cannot be separated from the slayings. Spengler, a neighbor of Nguyen's in Webster, N.Y., had previously been imprisoned for fatally bludgeoning his grandmother with a hammer.

"It is one thing to provide a gun to a person one knows to be a felon; it is something else to provide guns, as (Nguyen) did, to a person one knows to be a killer," Noto writes.

Nguyen has pleaded guilty to the federal crimes. She also was convicted in state Supreme Court of lying on the firearms purchase form when she said the guns were for her. State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Moran sentenced her to 16 months to four years in state prison.

In June 2010, Nguyen and Spengler went to Gander Mountain in Henrietta, N.Y., where she bought the weapons for Spengler, who could not own guns because of his past crimes.

On the morning of Christmas Eve 2012, Spengler fatally shot his sister, Cheryl, then started a blaze that largely destroyed his Lake Avenue home and others along the Lake Road strip.

He then lay in wait for firefighters, ambushing them with the guns bought by Nguyen. He fatally shot West Webster volunteer firefighters Michael Chiapperini, 43, and Tomasz Kaczowka, 19. He wounded two others before killing himself.

The 10-year sentence "is what the victims have asked for," U.S. Attorney William Hochul Jr. said Friday of the families of the slain firefighters.

"It's absolutely critical that the judge keep in mind the chain of events started by Dawn Nguyen," Hochul said.

In a letter to the court, Nguyen, now 25, said that Spengler told her he wanted the guns for hunting, and she did not know enough about guns to find that unusual.

She wrote that she knew Spengler had been imprisoned for the death of his grandmother, but she did not know exactly what he had done.

Her attorney, Matthew Parrinello, said Friday that the request by prosecutors for a 10-year sentence is a "media grab."

"She committed a crime and she has already been punished," he said, noting Nguyen's state prison sentence. Parrinello wants Larimer to use the sentencing guidelines, and have the federal sentence run concurrent with her state sentence.

Prosecutors are asking that the federal sentence not be served until after Nguyen completes her state sentence, which would further increase the time she has to spend in prison.